108 CIVIL HISTORY AND 



CHAPTER IV. 



CIVIL HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF ARABIA. 



Extinction of the Saracen Power— Formation of new Kingdoms 

 in the East— Victories and Dominions of Timur— Conquests 

 of the Turks and Portuguese in Arabia— Selim I. obtains the 

 Investiture of the CaUphate — Expulsion of the Turks by the 

 Independent Arab Chiefs— Dominions of the Imam of Sanaa 

 — His Government, Revenues, and Military Force — Descrip 

 tion of Sanaa— Visits of European Travellers to that Capital 

 — Principal Town in Yemen— Beit el Fakih — Taas— Mocha 

 — Aden — Government of Hadramaut — Of Oman — Description 

 of Muscat — Court, Revenues, and Commercial Enterprise of 

 the Imam— Islands of Bahrein — Pearl Fisheries — Depreda- 

 tions of the Joassamee Pirates in the Persian Gulf— Various 

 Expeditions from India to suppress them — Reduction of Ras 

 el Khyma and their principal Fortresses — Arab Settlers on 

 the Persian Frontier — Classification of the wandering Be- 

 douin Tribes — Their migratory Habits and Military Strength 

 — Government of their Sheiks — Their Laws and Judicial 

 Trials — Reflections on their Political Institutions. 



The history of the Saracens, both as a military and 

 a political nation, may be said to have expired with 

 the reduction of Bagdad by the grandson of Zingis 

 Khan. The successors of Mostasem, to the number 

 of eighteen, called the Second Dynasty of the Ab- 

 bassides, were merely the spiritual chiefs of the Mo- 

 hammedan religion. For two centuries and a half 

 the ecclesiastical supremacy continued in the hands 

 of these venerable phantoms ; when at length the 

 tide of invasion swept away the only remaining 

 vestige, and feeble representative, of the once proud 

 caliphs of the East. Long before the downfall of 

 the Abbassides, Arabia had shared in the declining 

 fortunes of its masters. Instead of being the seat 

 of the successors of the Prophet, or the centre of 



